A Great Norton Commando Weekend

Two weekends ago I drove to Victoria to visit my daughter and to check out my 1974 Norton Commando Interstate at my friend Jim's place in Sooke. It was a beautiful sunny spring day so we decided to take our Nortons out for a bit of a check ride.  Mine had been in Jim's garage undergoing his tender ministrations in order to restore it to roadworthiness. When I first bought the motorcycle I could not get it to even fire.

This past weekend I returned to Sooke, this time with my 1974 Norton Commando Roadster along for the ride. it had occurred to me last weekend that it would be great to get photos of all four Commandos together. It was something that would be unlikely to happen again.

When I arrived in Langford I stopped for a coffee at Starbucks. Parked right next to the coffee shop was an immaculate old Harley-Davidson motorcycle. I grabbed my camera and as I was taking photos, the owner walked over and removed his helmet from the handle bar so I could get a better shot. We struck up a conversation about his motorcycle. He told me that the bike, a 1948 Knucklehead, was his daily rider and, while he had a touch of Parkinson's disease, he still did a short ride every day that he could. He also mentioned that he had three other Harleys as well, one of the a 1929 model. He saw the Norton in the back of my truck and allowed that they were pretty good motorcycles too.

 

A pristine 1948 Harley Davidson Knucklehead

 



After many hours of work and some serious time kicking it over, the Norton fired up and ran quite smoothly to my delight as I was beginning to have some doubts as to whether Jim could bring the old girl to life. I shouldn't have questioned this at all. Jim knows about Nortons and knew what to do, although he admitted that he was puzzled by some issues from time to time.  I believe the comment was' "It's not fair that you have no worries about this bike at all while I lie awake at nights trying to figure out what's wrong."

On the Friday afternoon we rode in to Langford to visit Jim's friend Steve, at Phoenix Cycles. Steve is one of those guys who knows more about Harleys than even some of their engineers do. He also has a manner that can put people off if you tend to a sensitive type. Harley owners are not known for being sensitive types so it's all good. When we arrived on our Nortons he commented on our riding 'that English shit' and went on from there. It was good to find out many of the shortcomings of one of my favourite motorcycles.

After stopping for a coffee at Starbucks in Langford, (yes, I have brought Jim over to the 'dark side' after his lifetime of  drinking Tim Horton's 'coffee') we rode back to  Sooke where I had the idea to photograph my Norton with Jim's pair. That got me to thinking that it would be great to have a photo of all four Nortons together, so I loaded my 1974 Commando Roadster into my truck & took it to Sooke.



It was a beautiful Friday afternoon so we lined up all four Nortons for a photo op. It was an amazing sight to see four of my favourite motorcycles lined up in one place. I even made a short video which I posted on Youtube as well.

 

Four Norton Commandos

 

There's a lot of elegance here.

 

 

Four Norton Commandos. Which one is the bad boy?



A correction to the video commentary: From the far end: blue 1974 850 Commando Roadster, red 1974 850 Commando Interstate, yellow 1973 750 Commando Roadster, blue 1974 Commando Roadster.

Anyway, after a winter of working on my 1974 Norton Commando Interstate, Jim has it ticking over like a fine Swiss watch. It seems that I'm developing a habit of dropping off a Norton at Jim's in the fall, visiting it several times over the winter, then doing an inaugural run on the Circle Route from Sooke through Jordan River, Port Renfrew, Lake Cowichan, Duncan, and finally, Langford, before returning to Sooke, where I load the bike up for the journey back to Campbell River.

This year was no different. Jim arranged for Al Steenbergen to join us for the ride on Saturday morning.  Slightly after ten o'clock we heard Al's Harley approaching but neither of us was ready for the sight that greeted us as he turned into Jim's driveway. Sitting atop the 'horrid orange bike' (Jim's words) was Al who was wearing a pair of the more striking pajama bottoms that I have seen in quite a long while. Jim was horrified and told Al that he wouldn't be riding with us unless he ditched the pajamas.





 

Fashionable Al

 

Jim had a difficult time with those pants.







We headed out for our ride taking the highway to Jordan River. In places it was very cool still and the road has some serious bumps in it. If you're not careful you can hit one of those holes and get quite a jolt. After a coffee stop in Jordan River, we continued on to Port Renfrew where the guys stopped for a smoke break. When you ride with Jim and Al there are lots of those. The highway is great for motorcycle riding with lots of twists, turns, and elevation changes an we met many riders doing the route. This morning though, there didn't seem to be a lot of 'squids' which is always a good thing. On a previous ride Jim & Al had seen a 'squid's' Ducati sitting four feet deep in a ditch. Riding the way some of them do, it probably wasn't surprising that he had over ridden the road and failed to negotiate a corner.

 

Rest stop in Port Renfrew

The ride from Port Renfrew was uneventful except for our stop at the Harris Spruce, a huge tree that was spared the fate of so many of its compatriots. This is a good rest stop and we saw a group of about seven riders who were taking a break as we arrived. After the inevitable cigarette, we were off to Lake Cowichan and our lunch break at Tim Horton's.

The remaining part of the ride went very smoothly, although Jim was a mite upset with Al for not stopping at the rest stop just south of Duncan. One last stop was on the schedul where we dropped by Phoenix Cycles to see Ted and his new 2015 Indian Chief. The bike is a thing of beauty with the flowing lines that are associated with the marque, in addition to the beautiful paintwork and chrome. Polaris has done a great job with this motorcycle.

 

Ted's 2015 Indian Chief

 

Paint, chrome & styling is outstanding

 

Detail of front running light



Al has a case of pneumonia and he was probably not over it when he joined us for the ride. I think he was suffering from a relapse by the end of the ride. We headed back to Sooke where we loaded my brace of Nortons into the Toyota Tundra and I headed for home, where I arrived just after 11 p.m. It was a long day but a great one.

Both Nortons ran flawlessly over the 150 mile ride, a testament to both the quality of the motorcycles and to Jim's wizardry in keeping these machines running. I am indeed fortunate 'vintage gentleman' to own not one, but two of what I consider to be one of the greatest motorcycles ever built. Next week we will be heading out for a ten day ride to the US. Right now we're not certain where we will go but it should be a terrific ride with  more blog posts to come.